Maintaining a Package as a Non-Software Developer
Hello Debian Mentors, I am a sysadmin who manages dozens of Debian servers. I also use Debian for my personal computing. I am very thankful to the Debian project and would love to give back to it somehow. I was thinking that maintaining one or more packages would be a great way to do this. I know a bit of Java and C but do not write code on a regular basis (other than bash scripts). I am asking for a sanity check on whether or not this is a good idea, or if the work of maintaining a package is only plausible for highly skilled software engineers. From, Zach
Bug#1062001: RFS: trader/7.20-1 -- simple game of interstellar trading
Control: retitle -1 trader/7.20-2 -- simple game of interstellar trading Control: tags -1 - moreinfo Dear Tobias, Thank you very much for your feedback on my RFS for Star Traders, and apologies for not replying sooner -- it's been a bit of a crazy week around here... You (or anyone else) can see my latest Git tree at the following URL; this tree reflects the changes I've made as a result of your email: https://www.zap.org.au/git-browser/trader.git/tree/?h=with-debian git clone https://git.zap.org.au/git/trader.git -b with-debian I do have a few questions and observations about your comments: > d/control: > - Please remove all versions from the versioned build depends that > are fulfiled already since oldstable, e.g gettext and automake. Good catch! This is what happens when one maintains a Debian package outside the distro since 2011... Given that the Git tag for package version 7.20-1 already exists (and has been distributed!), I've released the new package as 7.20-2, with the entry for 7.20-1 removed as it has not been uploaded to Debian. I'm retitling this bug report to suit. If you prefer, I can close this RFS and open a new one. You can now download the updated package by running: dget -x https://ftp.zap.org.au/pub/debian/dists/zapgroup-sid/main/source/trader_7.20-2.dsc > - Your VCS-Git link git:// is not using an encrypted link, but the > site supports https://. Please use https. Done. > d/copyright: > - the directory lib/ has files which are not documented in > d/copyright; (They have a different license and copyright) > - same for the m4 macros Hmm. The files (in lib and m4) that are not my own are mostly from the Gnulib GNU Portability Library. Rather tedious and quite a bit of work, but I've updated the debian/copyright file to suit. I find it interesting that you're the first Debian developer to pick up on this: previous sponsors of the package were okay with it the way it was. Perhaps you're more thorough! If it leads to a better Debian package, I don't mind. However, I note from section 2.3 of the Debian policy manual: Thus, the copyright information for files in the source package which are only part of its build process, such as autotools files, need not be included in /usr/share/doc/PACKAGE/copyright, because those files do not get installed into the binary package. My reading of that suggests there is no need to include copyright stanzas for files in the m4 directory. Is this understanding correct? This is what I've added to debian/copyright -- is this okay? Files: lib/* Copyright: 1987-2024, Free Software Foundation, Inc. License: GPL-3+ Comment: Some files in this directory (from the Gnulib GNU Portability Library) are licensed by the Free Software Foundation under LGPL-2.1+; other files are under GPL-2+. When combined with the remaining files from the same Gnulib library, these inherit the overall GPL-3+ licence. Files: lib/obsolete-strings.c lib/xopen-source.h Copyright: 2018-2024, John Zaitseff License: GPL-3+ > embedded code copies: > - gnulib is packaged for Debian, any reason why you don't use the > packaged version? The upstream release I make (in this case, trader-7.20.tar.xz) includes the files from Gnulib. And in all current cases, my snapshot of Gnulib is *newer* than what is included in the gnulib Debian package (currently 20240117+stable-1 in Debian Sid, but 20210102~ebaa53c-1 in Debian Bullseye/oldstable -- for Star Traders 7.20, my snapshot is from Tue Jan 30 17:07:32 2024 +0100). I believe my code depends on the newer Gnulibs to compile. But even if it didn't, the upstream release *must* contain Gnulib as it is compiled on distributions and operating systems where Gnulib is not packaged. Rerunning "gnulib-tool --update" as part of the build process is possible, I suppose, but given that my snapshots are newer, and there are API-related changes compared to the Debian oldstable and stable snapshots of Gnulib, I'm not sure that it's worth the hassle to even try using those Debian snapshots... > - there are m4 macros from autoconf-archive. Please check if you > can use the ones from the package autoconf-archive. Unfortunately, I can't. Some of the M4 macros (particularly m4/ax_compiler_vendor.m4) contain changes that I've submitted upstream but have not yet been included. Besides, the autoconf-archive package does not seem to be part of Debian Sid anymore. > Please add some upstream metadata: > https://wiki.debian.org/UpstreamMetadata This one was new to me. I've added a simple file, although the fields are copies of what is in debian/control already: Repository: https://git.zap.org.au/data/git/trader.git Repository-Browse: https://www.zap.org.au/git-browser/trader.git/ I don't have a bug database or a separate bug submission URL (Upstream-Contact from debian/copyright is what I ask people to use), the documentation is the home page of the project, etc. Happy to
Bug#1064934: RFS: nanomsg/1.2.1+dfsg-1 -- nanomsg utilities
Package: sponsorship-requests Severity: normal Dear mentors, I am looking for a sponsor for my package "nanomsg": * Package name : nanomsg Version : 1.2.1+dfsg-1 Upstream contact : Martin Sústrik * URL : https://nanomsg.org/ * License : Expat * Vcs : https://salsa.debian.org/debian/nanomsg Section : libs The source builds the following binary packages: libnanomsg6 - high-performance implementation of scalability libraries libnanomsg-dev - nanomsg development files nanomsg-utils - nanomsg utilities To access further information about this package, please visit the following URL: https://mentors.debian.net/package/nanomsg/ Alternatively, you can download the package with 'dget' using this command: dget -x https://mentors.debian.net/debian/pool/main/n/nanomsg/nanomsg_1.2.1+dfsg-1.dsc Changes since the last upload: nanomsg (1.2.1+dfsg-1) experimental; urgency=medium . * New upstream version 1.2.1. * Remove not required patches. * Remove not required lintian overrides. * 'd/libnanomsg6.symbols': Correct typographical error. Note: Could I be given upload rights to this package when accepted please. Regards Phil -- Playing the game for the games sake. Web: * Debian Wiki: https://wiki.debian.org/PhilWyett * Website: https://kathenas.org * Social Debian: https://pleroma.debian.social/kathenas/ * Social Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kathenasorg/ signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Bug#1064924: RFS: python-chameleon/4.5.2-1 [ITA] -- XML-based template compiler - doc
Package: sponsorship-requests Severity: normal Dear mentors, I am looking for a sponsor for my package "python-chameleon": * Package name : python-chameleon Version : 4.5.2-1 Upstream contact : Malthe Borch * URL : https://github.com/malthe/chameleon * License : BSD-3-clause~repoze, Zope-2.1, Python, BSD-3-clause * Vcs : https://salsa.debian.org/debian/python-chameleon Section : python The source builds the following binary packages: python3-chameleon - XML-based template compiler python-chameleon-doc - XML-based template compiler - doc To access further information about this package, please visit the following URL: https://mentors.debian.net/package/python-chameleon/ Alternatively, you can download the package with 'dget' using this command: dget -x https://mentors.debian.net/debian/pool/main/p/python-chameleon/python-chameleon_4.5.2-1.dsc Changes since the last upload: python-chameleon (4.5.2-1) unstable; urgency=medium . * New upstream version 4.5.2 * New Maintainer (Closes: #980408) * d/control: - Add pytest and sphinx as Build-Depends to run tests and generate docs - Change Maintainer name - Add a new package python-chameleon-doc for documentation - Bump Standards-Version to 4.6.2 - Add Vcs-Browser and Vcs-Git links * d/copyright: - Remove copyright stanza for non existent files - Add copyright stanza for debian/* files * d/rules: - Add PYBUILD_TEST_ARGS - Run dh along with sphinxdoc - override_dh_installchangelogs to install CHANGES.rst - override_dh_sphinxdoc to generate docs using sphinx * d/tests/control: Modify the Test-Command * d/python-chameleon-doc.doc-base: Add doc-base for python-chameleon-doc * d/python3-chameleon.lintian-overrides: Add lintian false positives to lintian-overrides Regards, -- Akash Doppalapudi OpenPGP_0xBCBCAE31ECE05007.asc Description: OpenPGP public key OpenPGP_signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Bug#1061778: RFS: vhba-module/20240202-1 [ITP] -- VHBA virtual host bus adapter module
Updated with the new upstream release: 20240202. https://mentors.debian.net/debian/pool/main/v/vhba-module/vhba-module_20240202-1.dsc -- Matteo Bini
Bug#1064572: RFS: lighttpd/1.4.74-1 / usrmerge
On Tue, Feb 27, 2024 at 08:47:22AM +0100, Alexandre Detiste wrote: > 9e6532694efb91a5da9d39acee0c9a6ce43eb180 > > Hi, > > I uploaded 1.4.74-1 but I noticed just now > that this would create a UsrMerge regression. > > If the .timer & .service are correctly named (too early in the morning > for me to think) > then the two lines in lighttpd.install are not needed at all. > > @Helmut: you can correct us directly on Salsa, > no need to file a bug. https://salsa.debian.org/debian/lighttpd/-/merge_requests/46 from Helmut has been merged. Would you like me to tag and sign lighttpd-1.4.74-2 with these changes? I'll do so later today unless I hear otherwise. Cheers, Glenn
Bug#1059503: RFS: blanket/0.6.0-1 [RFP] -- listen to relaxing sounds
The best solution is here to add the train sound under a slightly different name then and patch the source accordingly. Ok. I did change the name and the new version is up in salsa and mentors. -- Danial Behzadi در دوشنبه, فوریه 26 2024 at ۲۳:۰۸:۵۸ +01:00:00, Matthias Geiger نوشته بود: On Mon, 26 Feb 2024 16:08:57 +0330 Danial Behzadi mailto:dani.be...@ubuntu.com>> wrote: > Thanks for clarifying. I added the comment, but the Files-Excluded part > will trigger a source-ships-excluded-file error, as I replaced the old > non-free file with a new free one in DFSG source branch. Ah, I see. The best solution is here to add the train sound under a slightly different name then and patch the source accordingly. This way you can still import the dfsg'd tarballs. Let me know if you need help with this. -- Matthias Geiger Debian Maintainer "Freiheit ist immer Freiheit des anders Denkenden" -- Rosa Luxemburg
Bug#1064884: RFS: urlwatch/2.28-2 [RC] -- monitors webpages for you
Package: sponsorship-requests Severity: important Dear mentors, I am looking for a sponsor for my package "urlwatch", to close a FTBFS bug: * Package name : urlwatch Version : 2.28-2 Upstream contact : Thomas Perl * URL : https://thp.io/2008/urlwatch/ * License : BSD-3-clause * Vcs : https://salsa.debian.org/mwerlen/urlwatch Section : web The source builds the following binary packages: urlwatch - monitors webpages for you To access further information about this package, please visit the following URL: https://mentors.debian.net/package/urlwatch/ Alternatively, you can download the package with 'dget' using this command: dget -x https://mentors.debian.net/debian/pool/main/u/urlwatch/urlwatch_2.28-2.dsc Changes since the last upload: urlwatch (2.28-2) unstable; urgency=medium . * Backport upstream fix on LXML 5 (Closes: #1064736) Regards, Maxime
Bug#1064380: Aw: Re: Bug#1064380: RFS: jpeginfo/1.7.1-1 [Team] -- Prints information and tests integrity of JPEG/JFIF files
> The string " $Id: hash $" in "jpeginfo.h" file is almost not change in > upstream. > Even this string changed in upstream, it will not affect do deb package. "almost no change" is a change and dpkg-source will not create a source package for me. How are you able to create one from the released tarball?
